Left In Lowell

NEXT!

18 Responses to “NEXT!”

1. -b Says:
   January 19th, 2010 at 11:01 pm

   Congrats to Scott Brown. As someone who leans to the right, I hope his votes will reign in the spending. (although I have serious doubts)

   The one positive I saw out of the Coakley camp were the ads from Victoria Kennedy. They were positive and gave clear reasons to vote for Coakley. I think Coakley may have stood a better chance if she had chosen a message a little more like the one Kennedy was giving.

2. K-R-S Says:
   January 19th, 2010 at 11:10 pm

   I would agre -b, don’t think Brown is going to be able to do much as he says he is going to do..but that’s Ok (optimism is key!)!
   I didn’t hear/see any positive messages until about 24 hours ago.. I guess that speaks to how much time I do not spend watching TV

3. Steve Says:
   January 19th, 2010 at 11:11 pm

   They should have called Fred Bahou and asked for his campaign staff. They did a better job.

4. K-R-S Says:
   January 19th, 2010 at 11:17 pm

   **giggles** to Steve..so right!

5. Kim Says:
   January 19th, 2010 at 11:27 pm

   I was a lifelong Republican until I had a child with a medical condition. My daughter was born with a congenital cataract and per my doctor at Children’s my child needed to start wearing a contact lens at 6 weeks old for her brain to acnowledge that her eye worked. I went to pick up my first order of contact lens for $320 (which a small child loses atleast monthly and as often as weekly) only to find out they were excluded by my private health insurer. (my employer pays over $1600 per month for my coverage) I am deeply dissapointed that people do not think that health insurance should be a right. I am also deeply disappointed that residents that receive superior plans through collective bargaining agreements are not concerned about those that do not. I do not wish on anyone else to have to learn all of the exclusions that your insurance has, but I do strongly suggest that you really read your policy. You do not know how important good coverage is until you really have to use it. Everyone is happy with their HMO when they only use it for well visits. I am sure that Scott Brown as a Jag does not need to worry about his kids coverage. So annoying. Sorry for the ramble…

6. Mimi Says:
   January 20th, 2010 at 6:51 am

   Steve:

   That is one of the best one linersI have heard in a while.

7. Bob Forrant Says:
   January 20th, 2010 at 7:52 am

   So now we know, robocalls from on high do not an election campaign make - though now I have the voices of several top Dems on my answering machine, including the president, vice-president, and ‘Big Bill’ Clinton, the individual I hold responsible for the Democratic Party losing its soul to crass triangulation, moderation and spinelessness. For me this election demonstrates what happens when the Dems get way out of touch, miss the anger in the country and offer no alternative story to rescuing banks and having the banks rub our noses in it with their six&seven-figure bonuses.

   Holy crap - it was the Bushites that made many of the banking loopholes opened up by the Clinton economic team large enough for every Wall St skel to drive their Range Rover or BMW through. And, Pres. Obama appoints nearly all of Clinton’s economic team to fix the mess they are partly responsible for. Yikes!

   Voters do not necessarily know how we get out of the fix we are in, but they smelled rats in the presidential election and voted out the Reps and they smelled disdain and a lack of passion in this election on the part of the Dem candidate for Senate and the entire party at the national level. This was much, much more than the ‘right’ playing on voters’ emotions and fears. The economy is a freaking mess and the Dems can not, for a second, deny the fact that they have not owned the jobs issue even though they’s been the majority in Congress for three years and captured the White House in a landslide just a year ago. Theirs is a failed approach to getitng things done and perhaps Harry and nancy ought to take a walk for the good of the unemployed and uninsured.

   How about a blog’o’sphere post-election conversation sometime soon at a local watering hole?

8. Lynne Says:
   January 20th, 2010 at 8:46 am

   Mimi: my friend out of state sent me a line he saw in a tweet…”It’s ok, we weren’t using our super majority anyway.”

   Would be funny if it weren’t so true. LOL

   Bob: Pelosi is fine, but Reed…ug. Get him out. If he goes down in 2010 I won’t mind too much.

9. K-R-S Says:
   January 20th, 2010 at 8:55 am

   Here was in interesting email quote in Graham’s Boston Herald article today about why Massachusetts took a fundamental turn,
   “It’s about the 25 percent increase in sales tax, Deval’s promise to cut property taxes, Dianne Wilkerson padding her bra, Chuck Turner kickbacks, Galluccio’s DUI, Buonomo ripping off the copiers at the Registry of Deeds, Gerald Amirault, three indicted speakers and four criminal senators”
   I can’t say I honestly disagree with the above statement..

10. BigDog Says:
    January 20th, 2010 at 9:05 am

    It’s ridiculous to think that people voted based on what the Herald said about any of those crooks…hell think hard and we can come up with a few Republican crooks too can’t we? Romney and Celluci come to mind right off the top. I think the reason Brown won was because Coakley was bland and uneventful. Simple as that..Brown was more charismatic and upbeat….now when he gets to Washington let’s see exactly how he conducts himself!

11. Lynne Says:
    January 20th, 2010 at 9:11 am

    BigDog: agreed.

12. K-R-S Says:
    January 20th, 2010 at 9:12 am

    BigD..absolutely, we can find a few GOP crooks, there are rotten apples everywhere. Right on with a milk toast candidate

13. Right In Lowell Says:
    January 20th, 2010 at 11:17 am

    KRS… I heard all of those same reasons from lifelong dems as well. The worst criticism I heard for her was giving ‘rights’ to prisoners of war. That may not have resonated as well if the Christmas day attempt hadn’t happened. There are ‘crooks’ on both sides but lately it seems like MA dems have the lock on it. The last 3 speakers of the house are even worse.

14. Lynne Says:
    January 20th, 2010 at 11:39 am

    RiL: the Dems have a “lock” on it in this state because there pretty much ARE no Republicans at the state level. Ergo, if a small percentage of politicians end up being crooks, they’ll wind up Democrats - there are no Republicans to be crooks there.

    I’ll admit that the manner in which Speakers are chosen and leadership politics is played in the House (not so much the Senate) seems to produce the worst of the Dems in the position, but I have been calling on reform in the House for as long as I’ve been paying attention. People like Jamie Eldridge or Jen Benson or a host of other, clean-game Dems are the ones I want to see in leadership, let the cream rise to the top instead of the sludge. Until the game changes on how House politics is played we’ll continue with the current stupidity.

15. fishydude Says:
    January 20th, 2010 at 4:10 pm

    Kim, there are few, if any, insurance companies that cover glasses or contacts. Forcing insurance companies to cover glasses raises insurance costs for everyone. This fact is seen in Massachusetts as each year the Democrats in charge increase the coverage mandates and decrease the maximum allowable deductible.
    Health Care is not a right. No one has the right to a product or service provided by another. The only service of another we are entitled to is Jury Service.
    Anyone with a disabled child or an elderly parent should be happy Scott Brown won. Because for now, health care decisions are between you and the doctor.
    I have a nephew with Down syndrome and a mother-in-law with dementia and minus one leg and blind due to diabetes.
    Both of them would be at the mercy of the federal board that will be telling doctors how they can treat their patients. Don’t believe me. Just read it. Decisions will be based, in part, on age and disability. We know this because democrats blocked every amendment that will ban such discrimination.
    Maahtha lost because she assumed it was already won. And when she did wake up, her advisers made obscene and senseless attacks on Scott Brown.
    As AG Maahtha refused to investigate corruption involving connected Dems. It took the feds to finally step in. But she did make it clear she would prosecute anyone who used deadly force to protect their family. “We really try to discourage self help.” She did go after grandma garden clubs. Wrong priorities as AG.

16. Kim Says:
    January 20th, 2010 at 4:58 pm

    My doctor does not code her lens as cosmetic. It is coded as a prosthesis because unlike an older child or an adult with contact lens her brain will shut her eyes out and make her blind. Mass Health recognizes the prosthesis code for cataracts but not Tufts or Big Blue. (Harvard does but we do not have them as an option) Health care is not a right but it sure as hell should not be allowed to leave a child blind after paying tens of thousands for coverage. Coverage mandates should be increased and the lining of their big CEO’s pockets decreased. I guess it would take finding out that someone in your family is not covered for $1000’s of dollars in medical expenses for coverage you assumed you had. I do beleive that healthcare should be a right for everyone and from what I see in Massachusetts the state does a better job then the privare insurers.

17. fishydude Says:
    January 21st, 2010 at 12:47 pm

    Kim, Actually no state does a better job than the private sector.
    The number one denier of claims in the United States is Medicare.
    I do pay about $2K a year in deductibles. I use FSA for that.
    Unfortunately, government regulations do not allow this for the self employed.
    Until 1986, all medical expenses were tax deductible from dollar one. Now it has to exceed 7.5% of AGI.
    Congress also made it illegal to sell health insurance across state lines. This inflates costs and decreases competition. Why hasn’t anyone in Washington proposed repealing this ban?
    The Mass approach has made private insurance unaffordable for 10’s of thousands of residents. And premiums are rising there faster than the rest of the country. But that was predicted by sane people who opposed the mandates. As mandates rise, more people become uninsured because they can no longer afford it. Massachusetts gives these people a choice, pay a huge fine or leave the state.
    In Oregon, costs are controlled by only paying for assisted suicide for cancer in many cases.
    You can bet that once any plan with a “public option” passes, that legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia will follow. Just look at Europe. The Netherlands in particular.
    One thing you can count on is that government (and this blog) will never propose any reform that does not grow the power of government. The more power government has, the less freedom we have.
    Y’all spend too much time focusing on heart wrenching anecdotes and refuse to see the real damage these plans would do to everyone.
    By the way, if the proposals are so wonderful, why does congress exempt themselves and the very wealthy from the mandates? Try answering that one.

18. Mr. Lynne Says:
    January 21st, 2010 at 4:17 pm

    The exchanges are to set up so that their rules national while their administration is at the State level. That will pretty much make it easy for a given provider to set up in any state they want. The only thing I’m not sure about is how the risk pooling would work. I’d imagine that they’d be allowed to pool across State lines, since there is more efficiency that way and the polling is largely an abstract data construct anyway.

    You got a cite for the mandate exemptions? As far as Congress goes - don’t they already have healthcare? Wouldn’t that make the mandate a moot point?

    Mandates are absolutely a necessary component of risk spreading. If you take away adverse selection without adding mandates you essentially destroy private insurance by taking away any possibility to manage their business. Moreover it would just perpetuate the non-competitive race to the bottom for all private insurers. (Any insurer that is actually good at something and the can get inundated with the customers of the sick, money-losing variety and initiate an insurance death spiral. So everyone races to the bottom rather that actually being good at services.)

    Legal assisted suicide is a completely separate issue. You keep harping on this idea that the Government will dictate treatment. This is false. The comparitive effectiveness studies are not regulations - they are resources of information for providers. They are provided because, as it turns out, dollars spent doesn’t correlate to outcomes. This is because a decent amount of waste comes from tests and procedures that don’t actually help. There not ‘rationing’ based on these models. Their making the actual data available to doctors so as to encourage them to ‘ration’ away the unnecessary. This should generate cost savings.

    The price of mandated plans is certainly an issue, which is why there are subsidy plans. The exchanges are necessary because mandates would suck astronomically in the individual market without them.

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